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Headlines about the state of public education suggest a system on a consistent downward trajectory. For those who are neatly tucked away in the pockets of privilege it is easy to shrug off the extent of the calamity in many schools across South Africa. This is dangerous considering that the future of thousands of children is in jeopardy as they emerge from the education system either by dropping out or with a meaningless matric certificate.

There’s a pattern for the alarming reports on education: things are in disarray; the government was notified but there was no response; where legal action has been taken, the government has ignored any court decisions. A case in point is the mud school case with the Legal Resource Centre where government is yet to build the schools and the backlog of infrastructure that is yet to be implemented for many schools. When President Zuma visited the Eastern Cape in order to address the crises last year, those involved were at loggerheads with each other,…

Last month Premier Zille’s tweets caused yet another outrage across the social networking world. Many took umbrage with her reference to education refugees from the Eastern Cape who have flooded schools in the Western Cape running away from the dismal quality of education.

I did not follow the furore as closely as I should have as I was recovering from my first term of teaching, in the Western Cape. I decided to spend some of my school holiday (at home) in East London and Grahamstown, in the Eastern Cape. Conversations inevitably led to the Premier’s tweet and her defence and justification for using the word refugee. I was moved by the extent of outrage amongst friends and I found myself taking umbrage with all the talk about education and refugees in a democratic country such as South Africa.

Premier Zille’s defence was in the attempt of reclaiming the word refugee for herself and how she understands it in the context of the chaotic education system in South Africa where people are vot…